There is an increasing desire in the United States and throughout the world to improve the accessibility of both public and private facilities to disabled persons. For many years disabled people, particularly those who are unable to walk, have been denied access to career opportunities, entertainment, etc., because they were unable to either gain access to, or remain for long periods of time in, the buildings that provide such employment and services.
One of the difficulties faced by disabled persons is that standard bathroom facilities are not designed for their use. For example, standard bathrooms do not provide wheelchair access, since the stalls are usually too small and the doors are too narrow. Furthermore, even bathrooms which have been modified to provide wheelchair access usually do not provide necessary facilities for severely disabled persons such as, e.g., lift devices which can raise such a person out of the wheelchair and position him or her over the toilet.
The increased awareness of the needs of disabled persons has resulted in many building owners voluntarily renovating their facilities to provide access for the disabled. Laws have also been enacted at both the state and federal levels to require building owners to make their buildings accessible to the disabled. However, the high cost associated with such renovations has prevented and/or delayed compliance with such laws and has inhibited voluntary renovations.
For example, it can cost tens of thousands of dollars to renovate the bathroom facilities on a single floor of a typical office building to meet the minimum requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Thus, for an average high rise building, such renovations can total hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars. Such a large investment may not be possible for many building owners and may seem unwarranted where there may be only a few disabled people working in the building.
It has been suggested that building owners renovate one or two floors to provide bathroom facilities with disabled access, and then require all disabled persons working in the building to travel to a renovated floor. However, it is inherently unfair to require a disabled person to travel many floors to use a bathroom, while other building occupants have facilities on each floor. Furthermore, some federal and/or state regulations may require that bathroom facilities for the disabled be made available on each floor of a building.
In addition to the need to provide disabled bathroom facilities on each floor of a building, it is also desirable to provide first aid equipment (e.g., stretcher, oxygen, bandages, etc.) on each floor. However, the cost of providing such equipment on every floor of a large building is prohibitive.
Finally, there is a need to provide a safe means of egress from a tall building in the event of fire or other emergency, especially for disabled persons. Conventional elevators are not safe in fires, and disabled persons are often stranded in high buildings where the only means of escape is a stairway that they cannot use.